Alta States

Living in exile

He grew up on the shores of Alta Lake. “That’s
what I remember the most about my childhood,” says Whistler-born Davey Barr.
“Hanging out by the water all summer long. Life seemed so relaxed; so easy in
those days. Everybody on the Westside Road knew each other back then. It was
all about dogs and kids and windsurfers…”

But that’s all gone. Now 30 years old, happily
engaged and with a young child of his own, Barr no longer lives in the Whistler
Valley. A member of what could be legitimately termed the first generation of
true Whistler-born locals — children of the dreamers and pioneers and ski bums
and hippies who first moved here in the early 1970s — Davey was forced to move
down-valley to Squamish two years ago. “There are few of my generation even
connected with Whistler anymore,” he says. “Out of my graduating class, for
example, I think there are only a couple who actually lives in Whistler today.”

So what does that say about the community?
What does that say about Whistler culture and the way we treat the kids who
grew up here? “It’s kind of strange,” he says. “I love Squamish. I love owning
my own house and being able to ride my bike there all year long. But is it my
home? I’m not sure. I still feel so tied to Whistler. I’m tied to the
mountains. Tied to my parents. You know — I didn’t leave by choice. I was
pushed out. I knew I couldn’t keep renting. I knew I wasn’t getting anywhere.
But with the high price of housing in Whistler I had no alternative…”

Packing up and leaving town, however, was a
lot harder than he thought it would be. “It was tough,” he says. “Although I
knew I had to make the move, it didn’t feel right to me somehow. I’ve accepted
it now. But at the time it wasn’t easy to leave all I cared about behind.”

Barr admits he hasn’t allowed himself to think
too much about it since he arrived in Squamish. “I’ve kind of buried it,” he
says. “It happened so quickly that I never really had a chance to fight back. I
mean — I knew 10 years ago that there would be no place for me at Whistler.”

Having grown up in a town in constant flux,
Barr believes that it primed him for accepting the inevitable. ”I grew up with
change — whether it was watching the local garbage dump become the town centre
or seeing Creekside transformed into something foreign and impersonal. So for
me, moving to Squamish was just another change in my life.”